News Roundup

USA Today reports that homeschoolers are helping propel Mike Huckabee's campaign. Since Labor Day, Huckabee has climbed 20 percentage points in Iowa GOP polls, and the article says thousands of home-school activists could make a difference in the race.

FrontPage Magazine publishes an interview with Dave Gaubatz, who is supplying first-hand counter-terrorism intelligence with his Mapping Shari'a Project. The project identifies Islamic Centers in the U.S. and then does research to determine two things: which promote Shari'a law and which promote "violent Jihad and the destruction of the West." Gaubatz is testing the hypothesis that Shari'a is the "driving doctrinal force" behind Jihad.

Humans are evolving faster, not staying the same, Science Daily says. Humans on different continents are becoming more different, not more alike: "We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity."

The Chinese government is letting select Christian groups pass out Bibles at the Olympic Games. The allowance comes after human rights groups alleged that Olympic organizers were forbidding Bibles and other religious items. The organizers contended that they only said, "Each traveler is recommended to take no more than one Bible into China."

Are gifted children "left behind" under U.S. educational law? Some experts argue that "No Child Left Behind" diverts resources from gifted children and focuses teachers' attention on children who are on the verge of failure. Nancy Green, executive director of the National Association for Gifted Children, said "It's all about bringing people up to that minimum level of performance."

In Kansas, pro-lifers have convinced a grand jury to investigate a Planned Parenthood they say performs illegal late-term abortions, provides false information to state officials, fails to comply with parental notice requirements, and participates in illegal trafficking of fetal tissue.

Guatemalan lawmaker Roland Morales says, "Starting Dec. 31, the business of adoptions is over." On Tuesday, Guatemalan legislators adopted a law that tightens adoption law but allows pending adoptions to proceed with the previous regulations. The law attempts to clean up a system that some say allows birth mothers to sell their children.